


An account of isolation

by Amyler



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Conversations, Gen, Other, Post-Final Fantasy XIV: Stormblood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-19
Updated: 2020-12-19
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:13:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28163751
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amyler/pseuds/Amyler
Summary: The Warrior of Light, bereft of the Scions, is visited by another close companion, and tells of another who was left alone.
Kudos: 4





	An account of isolation

The Warrior of Light, defender of Eorzea, saviour of Ishgard, liberator of Doma and Ala Mhigo, sat tense upon her cot near the Ghimlyt Dark front lines, brooding. Truthfully, brooding was a word rarely applicable to Amy Wall, the indomitable axe, but here, bereft of the Scions of the Seventh dawn, plagued by cryptic visions, and possessed of a restless nature that did not cope well with extended chirurgeon examinations, there was no better word to apply to the woman.   
Amy lay back in her cot, struggling to focus on the book in her hands enough to continue scanning it for clues, but that was one of the rare battles she knew she would lose. It was a dry, meandering text, supposedly documenting the invention and magicks of linkshells, something she had pulled off a shelf hoping for clues of the mysterious sendings that had at this point incapacited ever other Scion. Three pages had been all she needed to dismiss it as a self important scholar fanning their own ego, opposed to a compendium of knowledge in its own right.  
The tome snapped shut after yet another reference to "hertofore unachieved genius", and Amy restrained herself from tossing the worthless tome across the room, instead putting it onto the small pile of already dismissed works to her right, but before she could take up another, murmured conversation caught her attention.  
The deep rumble speaking outside her tent was easy enough to identify, and the Maelstrom surgeons voice responding was similarly familiar. Amy swung her legs off the bed, ready to refuse an extention of her current bed rest, but before she could step up, the tent flap opened and in stepped the Flame General himself, his steady gaze locking with Amy's.  
"A day inside one of these tents is enough to drive any soldier mad, I know full well." His small grin was knowing, and in response Amy found herself smiling for the first time since Alisaie had collapsed at the Dark.  
"Gladly I'd trade an arm to get out of here, general. You're proof enough that such a deal would slow me down far less than remaining for yet another dowsing." Few were the people who could joke about Raubahn's loss, but Amy's crack brought a shine to the generals eye as he nodded to the exit.  
"No need to pay that price, Warrior. General Tarupin has command of the front, leaving me time to eat, but not the company to enjoy it with." Amy nodded in quick response. Another hour cooped up here with books she barely understood would avail her naught, but time in the company of a good friend? That would bring her a measure of peace rarely seen.  
The Maelstrom surgeon hovered awkwardly nearby as Amy donned her armor, but a glance from both the Warrior of Light and Bull of Ala Mhigo was enough to kill his protests before they were vocalized, and the two soon left behind the healers, arriving at the generals personal tent minutes later. Once they had entered the relative privacy of his tent, Raubahn spoke up.  
"No word then on what ails the Scions?" Amys mouth twisted in response.  
"Nothing. Krile, Tataru, myself and many others are exploring what avenues we can, but there is so little information to inform us." She looked into space for a moment before continuing, her voice quieter. "We will solve it." Raubahn shook his head briefly.  
“I’ve no doubt of that, friend. No one who knows you does. Nor should you.” A heavy hand clapped Amy on the shoulder. “Have faith.”  
Amy’s gaze remained focused into the distance, but a tension eased from her at his words. Many of her friends were currently lost to her. But there remained a small and precious few here she could be human with. She met his gaze and smiled, letting her appreciation show.  
“I shall, Raubahn. But for now, I believe you promised me a meal.”

Few, very few, knew the Warrior of Light as anything more than a whirlwind of activity and energy, swooping into an area, assisting those she could, empowering those she worked with, before gusting away to cut into yet more problems and change the world in ways no other could.  
Of those few who saw the woman within the whirlwind, Amy reflected, fewer still saw that woman as a person same as any other. A person with fears, a person with unique foibles and habits. How much she adored orange juice. How, after two tragic events with poison, she had taken to pressing her own. The quiet lump of fear she felt when eating food she did not have a hand in preparing.   
Perhaps, considering one of those poisonings had involved Nanamo Ul Namo, the Flame General now had similar compunctions. The old bull was a perceptive man, so perhaps he had sensed Amy’s reservations upon inviting her to eat with him. Whatever the reasoning, Amy felt a surge of relief when the food that arrived was not an ornate meal prepared specifically for two of the most important people in the camp, but simple casserole, fit for any soldier, plucked from one of any number of pots bubbling across the camp. This was safe to eat with ease.  
The two ate in silence for a time, Raubahn defter with one arm than many others could manage with two. When their meals were finished, the two remained sitting, wrapped up in their own problems and how they could assist the other with theirs. After a time it was the general who broke the silence.  
“I’d wager you have better stories than any other soul in Eorzea, Amy, yet too few by far are the chances I’ve had to hear them from your lips. Much did I miss in a cell before you plucked me out, and certain am I there are events in your life that would make a minstrel blush to tell them. So, before you are whisked away to make another, share one with me, if you would.”  
At his request Amy barked out a brief laugh. His attempt to take her mind off her woes could not be more transparent, but she saw the game in trying to impress a man with as many personal victories and battles as she had. Amy nodded, her mind filtering through the stories she held in search of one that would impress her confidant.  
Her axe had once cleaved through Titan, cutting open the primal as if he were fragile slate. Remembering just how hard Raubahn had hit her in their mock battle, she discarded that. Had he two hands he’d be stronger than she by far.  
When storming the Praetorium she had stolen magitech armor and marched it through the castrum, blowing holes in walls and scattering soldiers like they were childrens marbles. A brief boom echoed across the tent with that thought. Right. Fighting Garleans was old hat to everyone here.  
Finally her mind settled on just the tale to share with the general, and she stretched in her chair, and began to talk.

“Every child in Ishgard can point out the Dragonstar in the night sky, and every astrologian in Eorzea knows its import; eons ago from the Dragonstar came Midgardsormr, father of the first brood, and the red star responds still to the call of the father of dragons and his brood.

Ishgard was enthralled in a thousand years of war with the draconic horde. Allagans before them defeated Bahamut and bound his primal in Dalamud. Near two decades ago Midgardsormr saved Eorzea itself, crashing the Agrius into Silvertear Lake before it could unload a Garlean horde none other could restrain. But while we know what dragons have done we know so little of what dragons are, of what motivates and guides them. Beings from another planet, so far from us as to defy comprehension, surviving the passing of eons and possessed of a power to rival any primal, yet enthralled all the same in the snares that catch us mortals. War, loss, love.   
I first met Midgardsormr after I clambored across his bones after the dragonstar shone in response to a call. I led men across that climb, facing draconic horde and Garlean boots both, and alone at the summit, I was faced with a corpse that lived. His eyes glowed red, and that dead dragon spoke to me.”   
“Though hast forgotten the face of thy lord. Remember, mortal, and fear me.” Amy’s voice tried and failed to match the deep rasp of the father of dragons, her effort leaving her and Raubahn grinning both.  
“Let me assure you Raubahn. I feared him! Besides his bones, Leviathan looked a fishermans grub, wriggling for the hook. But I took my axe, and I slapped it against his aether, and that of dragons he casually revived, until eventually the big man grew tired of watching me and afforded me a conversation.  
He challenged me on a level none other ever could. I am blessed with the Echo, a gift from Hydaelyn herself. Many are. But never, not once in my wildest dreams, could I have that Midgardsormr was possessed of it too.  
Where I was chosen, he chose. The father of dragons had, upon arriving at Hyaedlyn so long ago, consented to a pact with the mothercrystal, protecting the planet in exchange for amnesty.”

Amy sat quietly for a moment as Raubahn absorbed what had been shared. She felt the question turning over in his mind, and gave voice to the answer.  
“Amnesty. Midgardsormr was the Red-maned Wyrm of the Dragonstar, lord of his entire world. Yet out there, in the cold vast reaches of space, existed empires capable of transcending the boundaries of their own planet, capable of travelling across to anothers. Perhaps the Dragons were the first to fight. Perhaps that other nameless planet. I know not, and it doesn’t matter to me.  
But in a war with another planet, Midgardsormr found an opponent he could not defeat. Untiring, unfearing. Constantly adapting and improving. The war between the Dragonstar and its rival extended on, until eventually the Father of Dragons found himself on a barren planet, void of the aether and life needed to sustain anything.  
He took upon himself his last seven eggs, and he fled. For all his might, the father of dragons took to the cold of space like an Ala Mhigan veteran crossing into Ul’Dah to protect his children from oppressors.   
He crossed a vast eternity of space. A distance I feel no mortal being could comprehend. Lifetimes, spent alone, travelling across emptiness. A journey that would kill any other, perhaps. But the father of dragons was strong, and he was motivated. He crossed that void to protect those seven eggs, and protect them he did.  
When he finally found Hydaelyn, Midgardsormr was surely near spent. No longer a red maned conqueror, but a refugee in truth. He arrived and made compact with the mother crystal. He would not be a tyrant or a lord here. He would be a protector. In exchange for serving her insterests, Hydaelyn granted him a place at the table. Sanctuary, and space in which to hatch his final seven eggs and finally, at journeys end, usher into life what we call the first brood. To him, the last, after everything he lost and left behind to protect.  
I don’t have as much insight into the rest of his story here. He hatched his brood, and fathered them, motivated by love and loss. He gave them room to live their own lives. Mourned their pain, cherished their happiness.  
Eventually he saw fit to challenge the Agrius. I still don’t know why. By destroying that ship, did he stop some Ascian plot to bring about destruction? Was that an act undertook as Hydaelyn’s servant, or as the one time conqueror and king? Or in the Agrius did he see echoes of Azys Lla, a relic of the Allagans who tormented his brood? Perhaps that was the act of a father, willing to die to protect his children from an echo of an ancient tragedy.”  
Amy finished her thoughts, and took a long drink of orange juice. Raubahn looked into the lantern, thinking deeply, before scowling.

“I ask you for a story, expecting to here tell of you smashing Ultima weapon to pieces, or defeating Zenos yae Galvus in single battle, and instead, you drop into my lap an account that any historian would kill to have a written record of! Gods above.”

At this Amy cackled, and Raubahn joined in, his mock scowl giving way to laughter that rang from their tent.  
“Would you like another story, then? A similar topic, but I’ll keep historical revelations to a minimum, I swear.”

They spoke long into the night, Amy giving accounts of Dragoons and dragons, robots and homes. Sincere wishes and close friends.


End file.
